Hot in Chicago series author Kate Meader returns with her all new, scorching Chicago Rebels hockey series. Three estranged sisters inherit their late father’s failing hockey franchise and are forced to confront a man’s world, their family’s demons, and the battle-hardened ice warriors skating into their hearts.

Harper Chase has just become the most powerful woman in the NHL after the death of her father Clifford Chase, maverick owner of the Chicago Rebels. But the team is a hot mess—underfunded, overweight, and close to tapping out of the league. Hell-bent on turning the luckless franchise around, Harper won’t let anything stand in her way. Not her gender, not her sisters, and especially not a veteran player with an attitude problem, a chip on his shoulder, and a smoldering gaze designed to melt her ice-compacted defenses.

Veteran center Remy “Jinx” DuPre is on the downside of a career that’s seen him win big sponsorships, fans’ hearts, and more than a few notches on his stick. Only one goal has eluded him: the Stanley Cup. Sure, he’s been labeled as the unluckiest guy in the league, but with his recent streak of good play, he knows this is his year. So why the hell is he being shunted off to a failing hockey franchise run by a ball-buster in heels? And is she seriously expecting him to lead her band of misfit losers to a coveted spot in the playoffs?

He’d have a better chance of leading Harper on a merry skate to his bed…

Review

I have a love-or-hate relationship with sports romances and this one fell firmly in the first category. I have minor niggles with the story (some gender stereotyping and some slut shaming of puck bunnies which I find is the thing that most bothers me in sports/celebrities romances) but overall found it a nice, enjoyable read.

Remy is a hockey player at the end of his career, making plans for family and kids and being sort of stay-at-home dad and I loved how open he was about his dreams of having a family of his own. And I loved his parents and sisters and the way they interacted with each other presenting the model family he wanted to himself. Still, this was all in the future and right now he was very much focused on his professional career.

Harper was also an interesting, complex character, very much his opposite except for their shared passion for hockey. Her family was the total opposite of his and this has left with deep scars. I loved the dynamics of their relationship with her two estranged sisters and how they were trying to become a family.

I'm usually hesitant about of employer/employee romances because of the dynamics of power and she being part-owner and general manager of the team and him playing for that team (after she insisted on buying him) was a fraught situation for them both. She did have everything to lose and putting it on the line for him was a huge deal for her.

There was a strong sexual tension between and after the initial distrust and dislike, they started an emotionally charged affair which grew into real intimacy. The unavoidable misunderstandings happened but they talked things through a very satisfying HEA.

Three estranged sisters struggle to sustain their late father’s failing hockey franchise in Kate Meader’s sizzling Chicago Rebels series. In this second entry, middle sister Isobel is at a crossroads in her personal and professional lives. But both are about to get a significant boost with the addition of a domineering Russian powerhouse to the Rebels....

Isobel Chase knows hockey. She played NCAA, won Olympic silver, and made it thirty-seven minutes into the new National Women’s Hockey League before an injury sidelined her dreams. Those who can’t, coach, and a position as a skating consultant to her late father’s hockey franchise, the Chicago Rebels, seems like a perfect fit. Until she’s assigned her first job: the man who skated into her heart as a teen and relieved her of her pesky virginity. These days, left-winger Vadim Petrov is known as the Czar of Pleasure, a magnet for puck bunnies and the tabloids alike. But back then... let’s just say his inability to sink the puck left Isobel frustratingly scoreless.

Vadim has a first name that means “ruler,” and it doesn’t stop at his birth certificate. He dominates on the ice, the practice rink, and in the backseat of a limo. But a knee injury has produced a bad year, and bad years in the NHL don’t go unrewarded. His penance? To be traded to a troubled team where his personal coach is Isobel Chase, the woman who drove him wild years ago when they were hormonal teens. But apparently the feeling was not entirely mutual.

That Vadim might have failed to give Isobel the pleasure that was her right is intolerable, and he plans to make it up to her—one bone-melting orgasm at a time. After all, no player can perfect his game without a helluva lot of practice...

Review

After enjoying the first book I had high expectations of this but sadly, it left me deeply disappointed. I love second-chance stories and athletic heroines are not that common, so I was very much looking forward to reading this.

In the end what I got a very stereotypical presentation of a Russian hockey player and I honestly hated it. He came off as ignorant, speaking poor English after living in the US for years, his father had mob concoctions (of course). As an Eastern European myself, I found the jokes on the Russian language and culture not funny at all but rather insulting and done in poor taste.

I liked the heroine initially but then the whole main conflict didn't work for me. Spoilers! She was convinced he was bad at sex because he didn't make her come the one time they had sex (she was a virgin). And him learning that made him question himself despite being know as the tzar of pleasure.

And he went on sort of a quest to prove himself to her. I really wasn't sold of heir romance. Vadim was presented as possessive, acting like she belonged to him right from the very first minute they reconnected, something I didn't appreciate at all.

As in the first novel, here some of the tension between Vadim and Isobel came from the fact that she was co-owner of the team he played for and she was trying to get a permanent position as a coach in the team.

One of the few things I enjoyed was the family dynamics between the sisters and the whole sports team atmosphere. In the end this was not enough the save the story for me. It left me angry and though I was interested in the upcoming m/m novella in the series and the story of the last of the sisters, I'm not sure I will be continuing with the series.